Witness: Stacy Peterson 'wanted out' but Drew refused

January 25, 2010

The last person known to have spoken with Stacy Peterson before her 2007 disappearance testified Monday that she was so desperate to leave her husband that she considered sleeping with someone else "so he wouldn't love her anymore."

Bruce Zidarich, 45, of Downers Grove, said he and Stacy had grown closer in the weeks before she vanished because they both were having relationship problems -- he with Stacy's sister Cassandra Cales and she with Drew Peterson, then a Bolingbrook police sergeant.

"She said she didn't want anything -- she wanted out," Zidarich said. But Stacy told him Peterson, who had been tracking her whereabouts with a GPS system on her cell phone, wasn't about to let her go, telling her that even if she slept with someone else in front of him he would still love her.

Monday was the fourth day of a pre-trial hearing on whether certain hearsay statements will be heard in the trial of Peterson, who is charged in the 2004 drowning death of third wife Kathleen Savio. As expected, much of the testimony so far has been about Stacy's disappearance. Prosecutors are trying to convince a judge that Peterson caused Savio's death or Stacy's disappearance in order to have hearsay admitted under a new state law.

Zidarich said he was increasingly worried about Stacy's safety. He recalled a July 2007 incident when Peterson came to his Yorkville home looking for Stacy, who had left 10 to 20 minutes earlier. Peterson asked to see a computer, and Zidarich said he took him to his home office.

"He showed us how he had all the phones on GPS," Zidarich said. Peterson showed him where Stacy was on the map.

On Oct. 27, the day before Stacy vanished, Zidarich talked to Stacy about her increasing desperation to leave Peterson. They exchanged a series of text messages just after midnight, where Zidarich suggested they meet for coffee. Stacy asked if they could "go to breakfast in the morning w/my babies instead" because it had been a long day.

But the planned meeting on Oct. 28 never happened. Instead, Zidarich spoke to Stacy by phone later that morning about helping him repaint the inside of his Yorkville rental home.

Stacy never responded to his 4:30 p.m. text message -- "Whatcha doin 2marrow?" and within a few hours Stacy's family and friends were frantically searching for her.